


2000

by heatgeneratingtechniques



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Confused Link, Fluff, Hints at Polyamory, M/M, Rhett being weird
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 14:05:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9126982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heatgeneratingtechniques/pseuds/heatgeneratingtechniques
Summary: On the eve of the new millennium, Link tries to snap Rhett out of a bad mood.





	

Rhett’s kitchen cabinets are chock-full of canned food like he’s running a freaking grocery store. There’s canned corn, green beans, cranberry sauce, and – _seriously?_ – even canned milk. I can’t find any cereal, which is the worst part of all. Rhett’s always kept cereal around for when I come over.

“Where’s the _cereal_?” I yell.

“Told you it was bad!” Jessie’s voice comes from the other room, followed by laughter from the other houseguests.

The refrigerator’s full too, of nothing but gallons and gallons of freaking store-bought water. Rhett actually went to the store and purchased something you can get by turning the faucet on. No normal drinks in sight.

The freezer is packed tightly with bags of ice.

I can’t believe him.

Guess I should be happy he agreed to still host the new year’s party.

Jessie warned me. Rhett’s apparently been watching all those Y2K news reports and spending time on the computers at the library doing nothing but reading about the coming apocalypse. Or something. I haven’t been paying attention since I’d been back at Mom’s place for the past few weeks. I knew he had been stocking up, but I hadn’t realized he’d gotten _this_ much stuff. I have a feeling he waited to get most of it when I wasn’t here so I couldn’t convince him to save his money.

Back in the other room, I take a moment to scan the crowd. The new year is less than twenty minutes away. “1999” is blaring from the speaker setup that Rhett and Gregg set up earlier this week. The TV is tuned to ABC, where Peter Jennings has apparently been on air talking to people about the new millennium all freaking day. Crazy. Can’t imagine being in front of a camera for that long.

A few people have already broken out their year 2000 glasses, which Rhett and I agreed makes everyone look like they should have a third eye growing out the side of their face. But Rhett’s nowhere to be found among the friends scattered all over the house. I finally stop Jessie as she’s about to go into the kitchen.

“Where’s he hidin’?”

She tilts her head towards the stairs. “In his room. Sulking away. Try to get him to come back out, will ya?” She looks down for a moment, her smile disappearing. “He doesn’t want to talk to me.”

I doubt there’s much that I could do to surprise Rhett. “What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know!” Jessie laughs. Her eyes flick away from me. I follow her gaze and find her looking at my girlfriend – nope, _fiancée_ – Christy, who nods.

“Kiss him,” Jessie says, sounding serious all of a sudden.

I don’t know what to do, so I start laughing.

“Link.” She puts her hand on my arm. “I mean it.”

Christy pops up next to her. “Did you tell him?” she asks Jessie.

“Wh... ‘did you tell him’?? Is this some kinda _plan_ you guys had going?” I demand.

It’s hard to stop laughing. They’re both looking at me so _intensely._ I don’t know if I like that. We move away from the kitchen entrance, to a quiet corner.

“He’s been in a bad mood for a couple of weeks,” Jessie explains. “You didn’t notice?”

I take a moment to think, looking out across the house-guests bobbing in time to the music. “Well, he _did_ snap at me when I forgot to bring another extension cord today.”

“Well, he doesn’t want to kiss me,” Jessie said. “And I doubt he’d want to kiss you either.” She glances at Christy, who nods. “So that leaves you.”

Before I can say anything, Christy squeezes my hand. “We’ve been talking about this, honey. “Don’t you think you two should... talk about this?”

“Talk about _what_?” I’m so confused.

They share a look that says loud and clear, _Good_ gosh _, Link is dense._

Jessie grabs an unopened bottle of champagne from the table and shoves it at me. “Just go talk to him!” she urges. “If he’s not gonna kiss me in the new year, he might as well kiss his best friend.”

They both start nudging me towards the hallway.

“But Christy...” I look back at them. My heart’s pounding a little now, but I don’t know why I should be nervous because there’s no way I’m kissing Rhett. “Who are _you_ gonna be kissing then?”

She steps a little closer to Jessie, who leans into her embrace like it’s something they’ve done before. “I think we’ll be okay.”

“Oh.” They’re both smiling at me like they’re expecting me to say something else. “Okay.”

There’s something going on here.

Dang it, I’ll figure it out tomorrow.

Everyone’s gathered around the TV now, drinking and chatting. I push my way through the crowd and down the hall to Rhett’s room. I don’t bother knocking.

Rhett’s sitting at his desk with his head in his hands. We don’t have any tests to study for and here he is reading a book on New Year’s Eve.

“Hey Rhett, we’re outta milk.”

I don’t think he even hears me. I drop the champagne bottle on the desk and tilt up the cover of the book he’s reading, getting a quick glance at the title — _The Y2K Personal Survival Guide_ — before he snatches it back with an annoyed protest. He looks worried for some reason. Might be my imagination, but his eyes seem a little bit red.

“Jessie wanted me to check on you,” I tell him. “You all right, man?”

“Milk is perishable,” he says. “Don’t want to waste time with spoiled crap when the power goes out.”

I snort at that. “Who says the power’s going out?”

“Link.” He sighs. “Have you not been watching TV?”

I cross the room and plop down onto his bed. “I watched that millionaire game show some last week.”

“Did you read those emails I sent you?”

“Aw man.” I recall the many emails I have from him in my internet mailbox thing at work. “I kinda forgot about that.”

His eyes practically bulge out of his head. “You’re not prepared, then.”

“You think I’m gonna waste all my money on buying canned crap I’m never going to eat?” I shake my head. “Plus, nothing’s probably going to happen.”

I should’ve kept my dang mouth shut. He starts talking again, this time really fast. There’s this _look_ he gets when he’s super focused on something. His eyes get really big as if he could stare a hole through the wall and he waves his hands and talks extra loud. He says that computer systems aren’t equipped for the change from the year 1999 to 2000 and could crash at midnight, which would “wreak havoc on the tech-dependent infrastructure of the United States,” which would send the country spiraling into chaos, and yes, while he’d been praying a lot over the last few months and trusted that God would keep us all safe, it couldn’t hurt to be prepared–

“Okay, okay, Rhett. I get it!” I probably should be grinning, but I can’t help it. He’s really gotten carried away with this.

“It’s not funny, man!” He actually looks like he’s getting mad.

“Rhett.” I clap my hands a few times to get his attention. When he looks at me, his eyes don’t look as piercing anymore. He just looks worried. “Come here.”

“Listen,” I say when he’s sitting next to me on the bed, his elbows on his knees. “Are you listening, Rhett?”

“Yes,” he mumbles.

“Good.” I give him a hearty slap on the back to show him that I mean it. “Even if the computers _do_ go to crap, there’s nothing we can do about it. You stocked up enough cans of freakin’ nasty food to last for five years.”

“It’s not that nasty...”

“Rhett, I saw canned milk in there! Who the hell’s gonna drink _that_?”

“Oh you didn’t see? I got evaporated milk in boxes, too.” He huffs out a laugh when I wrinkle my nose. I’m glad, though. If he’s laughing, that means his mood isn’t that bad.

“That’s disgusting,” I tell him, “and I hope you have fun drinking that when the computers _don’t_ crash.” I glance at my watch. “Speaking of... we got a few minutes. You wanna come see the ball drop?”

He shakes his head.

“You’re not gonna kiss Jessie at midnight?”

He grunts noncommittally. My heart’s pounding again, and I think I’ve finally figured out why.

“Y-you know what Jessie wanted me to do when I came in here, Rhett?”

He must’ve heard something strange in my voice because his head snaps around so he can frown at me. “What.”

“Well. Um.” I’m having trouble getting the words out. But I know why now. I want to kiss him so bad that it’s making me all fluttery. There’s the question of _why_ dancing around the back of my mind, but that’s something I don’t want to worry about now. Jessie wants me to kiss Rhett and now I do too.

He’s squinting at me, confused. “What did you say?”

“Do you wanna...” I shrug. “You wanna maybe... kissmeatmidnightthen? Maybe? I-I mean, y-you gotta kiss _somebody..._ ”

I’m extra fluttery now. My hands are shaking and I have to fold them between my knees even though he’s probably already seen them trembling.

His eyes are getting big again. “ _Jessie_ put you up to this?”

Down the hall, comes the sound of our guests counting down, _ten, nine, eight, seven..._

I’m sweating. Probably blushing like a schoolgirl, too. “Yeah. Her and Christy. Actually, not really. I-I guess I wanted to do it, too.”

_...three, two one! HAPPY NEW YEAR!_

Rhett’s attention leaves me for a moment. He looks around the room a few times.

“The power didn’t go out.” He sounds dazed, the way he did when he wiped out on his snowboard and forgot where he was.

“Yep,” I say. “We’re okay.”

It sounds like the rest of the house is laughing and cheering. I imagine Christy and Jessie doing... well, doing _what?_ I don’t know.

Actually, I think I have an idea. It’s not happening to me and Rhett, though.

“You don’t want to k—”

His face is really close to me before I can even think — so close that I can see that his eyelashes are wet. His dry lips touch mine and I forget how to act. I don’t know what to do. He’s my best friend, but we’ve never been close like _this_ before, unless wrestling counts. Rhett faintly smells like cologne, his eyes are closed, and his hands are holding my shoulders in place even though I’m not moving. Just when I’m ready to act, he pulls away. We’re both breathing hard. He gets up from the bed and walks back over to his desk, where he rubs a hand over his face and doesn’t look at me for a while. All I can feel is this disappointment in my chest so terrible it makes me wish I could go numb.

“What? Do I smell bad or something?” I almost want to start laughing again even though he’s frowning at me and there’s a part of me that kinda wants to cry.

Rhett looks back at me. “You’re a little too happy about this.” He’s trying to act all mad, but I know he’s not. His face is turning red and he keeps licking his lips.

I remember the champagne bottle on the desk. “You want a drink?”

“No.”

I still feel like crying. He doesn’t move as I slowly cross the room and take the champagne bottle back.

But before I can leave the room, he embraces me from behind, squeezing so hard that I think I can feel his ribs. He feels so warm. His chin comes to rest on my shoulder as he sighs softly.

Again, I don’t know what to do. If this was Christy, I’d do something like touch her hair or try to tickle her or turn a little and give her a kiss. But this is Rhett and I already made things awkward by making him kiss me, so—

His lips make contact right beneath my ear and that sets off a chain reaction of shivers through my whole body. My legs feel a little weak.

“Happy new year,” he whispers.

Then the warmth around me is gone and I’m left gaping after him as he opens the door and walks out, letting in the cheers from down the hall.

I think he and Jessie and Christy and I need to have a talk.


End file.
